'CASTE IS A PROBLEM AMONG SOUTH ASIAN STUDENTS EVERYWHERE'

Meet the South Asian students and teachers working toward getting historically-marginalised castes protected status in university campuses.

- Sanjay

After facing attacks on his family in a caste-based incident in Nepal's Kathmandu in 2014, A Prem Pariyar moved to the US in 2015 to "escape the caste apartheid" and for a better career. But he faced caste discrimination again while pursuing a master's course from 2019 to 2021 at the California State University (CSU) East Bay.

Pariyar hails from a Dalit community in Nepal and is currently working as a caste equity oraniser with Equality Labs, a nonprofit Dalit civil rights organisation based in San Francisco, California.

He was waiting at a Bay Area train station when he met two other Nepali students, also attending CSU East Bay.

They chatted about the course and the exchange was friendly until they heard his name, which revealed his caste, "They stared at me from top to bottom and smiled at each other. I felt very uncomfortable with their behaviour," he said.

Pariyar attempted to raise awareness about caste discrimination among university students and teachers, speaking about it in his social work classes, but with little support. "My Afro-American professor was surprised and asked my other South Asian colleagues if they had heard of caste discrimination. They responded that they had not. They did not want to validate my experience but wanted to silence my voice. After knowing my identity, they stopped talking to me," he said.

The CSU system

Pariyar and a group of South Asian students organised conferences and campaigns to raise caste awareness. They convinced authorities to add the caste as a protected category.

"I co-ordinated a conference in which we had professors from South-Asian countries and other nations as speakers.